Identifying Environmental Determinants Relevant to Health and Wellbeing in Remote Australian Indigenous Communities: A Scoping Review of Grey Literature

Amal Chakraborty, Mark Daniel, Natasha J. Howard, Alwin Chong, Nicola Slavin, Alex Brown and Margaret Cargo
Additional contact information
Amal Chakraborty: School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia
Mark Daniel: School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia
Natasha J. Howard: School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia
Alwin Chong: Australian Centre for Child Protection, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia
Nicola Slavin: Environmental Health Branch, Department of Health, Northern Territory Government, Casuarina, NT 0810, Australia
Alex Brown: School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia
Margaret Cargo: School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 8, 1-19

Abstract: The high prevalence of preventable infectious and chronic diseases in Australian Indigenous populations is a major public health concern. Existing research has rarely examined the role of built and socio-political environmental factors relating to remote Indigenous health and wellbeing. This research identified built and socio-political environmental indicators from publicly available grey literature documents locally-relevant to remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory (NT), Australia. Existing planning documents with evidence of community input were used to reduce the response burden on Indigenous communities. A scoping review of community-focused planning documents resulted in the identification of 1120 built and 2215 socio-political environmental indicators. Indicators were systematically classified using an Indigenous indicator classification system (IICS). Applying the IICS yielded indicators prominently featuring the “community infrastructure” domain within the built environment, and the “community capacity” domain within the socio-political environment. This research demonstrates the utility of utilizing existing planning documents and a culturally appropriate systematic classification system to consolidate environmental determinants that influence health and disease occurrence. The findings also support understanding of which features of community-level built and socio-political environments amenable to public health and social policy actions might be targeted to help reduce the prevalence of infectious and chronic diseases in Indigenous communities.

Keywords: indigenous; public health; environmental health; built environment; social planning; public policy; community infrastructure; community capacity; environmental indicators; grey literature (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/4167/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/4167/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:8:p:4167-:d:536353

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().